The present invention relates to apparatus and computer programs for setting parameters that are to be used to set operating states of signal processing apparatus, such as digital audio mixers.
Conventional musical signal processing apparatus, such as digital audio mixers, have a so-called scene function, by which values of various operating parameters set in the processing apparatus are prerecorded as a set of scene data and the prerecorded scene data are read out, in response to a user's instruction, to thereby reproduce the settings of the operating parameters.
Any one of the values of the various parameters, included in the read-out scene data, can be modified or adjusted by user's manual adjusting operation. According to the conventional technique, if the value of a given parameter P among the parameters in the scene data is represented by “Psa”, and assuming that the parameter value Psa has been adjusted by a value Δ through user's manual adjusting operation, a current value Pn of the parameter P can be expressed by “Pn=Psa+Δ”, so that the manual adjusting value Δ can be regarded as “Δ=Pn−Psa”. Therefore, the conventional technique is arranged in such a manner that, when new scene data has been read out, it determines a manual adjusting value Δ by subtracting the value Psa of the parameter P in the scene data, having been read out so far, from a current value Pn of the parameter P(Δ=Pn−Psa) and then calculates a new current value Pnew by adding the determined adjusting value Δ to a new value Psb of the parameter P(Pnew=Psb+Δ). In this way, it is possible to obtain the new value Pnew having the adjusting value Δ of the so-far performed manual adjusting operation reflected in the parameter value Psb of the new scene data. Where the adjusting value Δ equals an actual manual adjusting value, the above-mentioned operations would present no significant problem; however, if an upper limited process is performed as follows, then the operations would present the problem that the adjusting value Δ subsequently fails to equal the actual manual adjusting value.
The upper limited process is a process for, when the newly-calculated value Pnew (=Psb+Δ) is greater than a predetermined upper limit value Pmax, modifying or limiting the calculated value Pnew to equal the upper limit value Pmax. In this way, the calculated value Pnew is modified to equal the value Pmax and the value Ps+Δ′ (i.e., Pnew=Pmax=Ps+Δ′), so that the adjusting value Δ′ of manual adjusting operation would be altered to a value smaller than the actual adjusting value Δ. Then, when another scene data has been read out, the manual adjusting value is calculated as “Δ′=Pnew−Psb”, and, if the value of the given parameter P in the other scene data is represented by “Psc”, a new current value Pnew equals “Psc+Δ′”. The adjusting value Δ′ being reflected in the new current value Pnew is different from the actual adjusting value Δ. Namely, once the upper limit process is performed in the conventional technique, the adjusting value having lasted so far would decrease (be modified) from the value Δ to the value Δ′, so that the user-intended adjusting value Δ would not be appropriately reflected in adjusting value Δ′ to be used subsequently. Namely, with the conventional technique, user-intended adjusting values could not be determined uniquely, and adjustment as desired by the user could not always be performed reliably.